Highlights
From the Migration Trail
Dr. Lincoln Brower has studied monarch butterflies for over 50 years. From
his mountaintop home in Virginia he sent the official word on Sunday: “Today
at 4:30 pm, 21 fresh monarchs arrived in our front garden and are nectaring
on the asters we have planted. This is almost certainly the first wave of
monarchs of the fall migration.”

Third graders at Swain School in Allentown, PA, have been studying monarchs
all fall. After their snack break on Tuesday they saw two migrating monarchs
and “the hallways were echoing their excitement,” said teacher,
Karen Green. For weeks, the kids had been asking her how they could get
a "circle" posted on the Journey North migration map. Take a look
at the map today. Can you find Allentown, PA?

Here are a just few of the many other places children saw migrating monarchs
this week. Can you find these towns on the map?

In the school's courtyard in Mystic, CT

The play-area
picnic table in Littlestown, PA

On the
playgrounds in both Bessemer and Homewood, AL

On the
school's door in Ponca City, OK

In the
school butterfly garden in Croswell, MI, around plants and bushes in
Manassas, VA

Flying
over a football game in York, NE, and a high school soccer field in
Powell, OH
...and even the principal's backyard in Wilmington, NC!

Who
Saw the Most Monarchs This Week? Migration-rate Math
Follow the link below to a few of this week's observations. Read the comments
and calculate the migration rate for each. Add your favorites to your own
Migration Highlights Map!

"We
observed around 100 monarchs resting and feeding today in our front
yard butterfly garden," said Sheila Daniels in Loda, IL, "We
live out in the country surrounded by corn and soybean fields for miles
in each direction so we are an oasis."

Fly across the landscape and measure how many miles this patchwork pattern
of cropland extends. Farming practices have a wide-scale impact on monarch
habitat, and a butterfly garden can be an important place for a monarch
to refuel.

"Our
butterflies get to travel all the way to Mexico and don't even have
to pay $4.00 a gallon for fuel!" said an observant 2nd grade student
in Muncie, Indiana.

So
true! A monarch’s fuel is fat (technically, “lipids”).
Because the monarch is so small we measure its fuel in milligrams (mg).
A monarch with a full tank can carry 140 mg of fuel. If it rides with
the wind--without flapping--it can travel 1,060 hours on that single tank
of fuel. However, when a monarch flaps it burns its fuel very quickly.
When it flies as fast as it can (in what’s called “escape
flight”), a monarch flaps its wings up to 12 times every second!
A monarch burns 12.7 mg of fuel every hour during escape flight. Do the
math in Challenge Question #4 and you’ll see why the wind is so
important to migrating monarchs:

Challenge
Question #4
“When flying its fastest, using escape flight, for how many hours
can a butterfly fly before running out of fuel? (Assume the butterfly
has 140 mg of fuel.) With your answer, explain why it is especially
important for monarchs to conserve energy during their fall migration.”

Discussion
of Challenge Question #2: How Many Butterflies in
a Piece of Paper?
It's hard for us to imagine the importance of wind in the daily life of
a butterfly. Challenge Question #2 asked, "If the average monarch butterfly
weighs 500mg, how many could you cut from one sheet of paper? Before you
look at our answer, lift one piece of paper and feel its weight. Then guess
how many butterflies would weigh the same:

Discussion
of Challenge Question #1: Why Do Monarchs Form Roosts?
Mrs. Nunnally's second grade class at Peter Woodbury School in Bedford,
NH thought of two important reasons:

to
rest for the night and save their energy

to be safe, they blend in with the trees and look like leaves, so a
predator can't get them.

Great job! Protection from the wind is also important. If you find a roost,
notice that the butterflies gather on the side of the trees that's protected
from the wind.

How
to Report Your Observations
Put your monarch news on the map! Watch for monarchs flying, feeding, or
resting. Tell us how many monarchs you see per hour (or per minute). Note
the temperature, wind speed and direction. When you're ready to report see: